Dark
by lookingforthestars
Summary: Paige never wanted to leave that closet.


**DAMN that episode was great. I'm still smiling every time I think about it. Get it, Walter. This is my contribution to the closet fics. It turned into so much fluff, although with the way Paige was jumping him, WeBuiltThePyramids' fic "Into the World" is probably more accurate haha. But it's always fun to read and write different approaches to a scene.**

 _I have an idea._

She hadn't exactly meant this. Paige wanted to find a quiet place for them to kiss and talk and absorb the weight of everything they'd confessed, but then his body came into contact with hers and the floodgates were open, his shirt unbuttoned and her dress half off before they even came up for air. She was feeling so much that she wasn't sure whether she was about to laugh, cry, or come apart.

And then…the team.

Paige knew she shouldn't be shocked. They'd been in her business every second since she joined Scorpion. At least Ralph hadn't witnessed her being groped in a closet. But Walter froze like a statue and although he was certainly recovering—in more ways than one—she understood why the intrusion was uncomfortable for him. "I'm sorry," she mumbled when they finally took a break, her breathing still shallow, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck. "I know you would've liked more time before the team found out."

Walter shrugged and focused over her shoulder like he usually did when he was thinking. She'd just adjusted to the dim light when Happy threw the door open, and it took several minutes to reach that point again. While the darkness effectively concealed their unromantic setting, she loved looking at Walter, reminding herself that it was really him she was melted against and not someone else she'd clung to in order to get over him. "They're geniuses. It wouldn't have taken them long to figure it out." He pressed his lips together. "They seemed accepting."

"Yeah." Paige sighed, linking her fingers together at the base of his neck. "I'll be happy to be back. I really missed everyone."

Walter frowned, his forehead creasing, and it occurred to Paige that he hadn't actually offered her old job. Perhaps he'd only told her of his feelings because they were no longer working together. But he _had_ invited her and her son to Tahiti. What if—.

"A-Are you sure you want to come back?" he interjected into her thoughts, shifting awkwardly. "Elia is clearly giving you more than I am capable of providing at Scorpion. And you're safe. No more dangerous missions. No more nights away from Ralph."

Paige relaxed, using her leverage to draw Walter closer and tilting her head up to look at him. After three years of taking care of the geniuses, it had been nice to be the one taken care of. Not to worry about paperwork, or meals, or smoothing over situations created by Walter's bluntness. But grateful as she was for Elia's generosity, she didn't have to think twice about giving it all up. "I belong at Scorpion. We both know that."

He smiled. "Okay."

Paige met his lips again, a long, lingering kiss that elicited a sigh from her. "We should go soon."

"We have nine and a half minutes." She was surprised it wasn't _nine minutes and twenty-four seconds_ or something equally precise, but she'd felt earlier evidence that his brain was not receiving his full blood supply, so he was clearly estimating.

"Mm. Good." For several of those minutes—it felt like hours and seconds to Paige, somehow, and she wondered if there was a scientific term for that, she would ask him later—they kissed, tongues stroking, his hands traveling back and forth between her upper thighs and the sides of her breasts. She had half a mind to let him strip her right there, but the thought of the team, or worse, her son, making another appearance calmed her libido. She would pack her skimpy bikini for the trip, the one she'd barely looked at in ten years as it sat in the back of her drawer but that she was sure Walter would enjoy removing.

His lips dropped to her neck, and she moaned quietly, jerking when he hit a sensitive spot. The man she had trained to flirt with Sima, the genius with a nearly crippling aversion to physical contact, was long gone. Paige never imagined he would touch her like this. He was passionate when she'd wanted passion, gentle when she wanted to go slower, and it was all making her head swim.

"I love you." It just slipped out, more of a gasp than actual words, but Walter pulled back, releasing a deep breath like something had shaken loose inside him. Paige ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. She knew how hard it hit when she'd said it earlier. The emotions that flickered across his face would have been barely perceptible to someone who didn't know him, but they were unmistakable to her. "Thank you. For telling me. I've wanted to hear that for a long time."

Walter nodded. "I d-didn't think you would say it back. I thought…maybe I was hallucinating after all." His brows furrowed. "I suppose I still could be."

The thought had crossed her mind, too, except her dreams didn't feel like this and Ray was certainly never in them. "Can you…" She blushed, biting her lip, almost embarrassed by how breathless she sounded. "I know you're not the kind of person who talks about your feelings a lot, and that's okay, but can you…say it again?"

Walter didn't ask what _it_ meant. He leaned forward, trapping her bottom lip between his, before breaking the kiss and swallowing hard. "I love you."

They'd spent months with a wall between them, a wedge of all the secrets and baggage and people they let interfere, and she thought it would take more than three words to tear it down, but she was wrong. One day, soon, they would address it, but he didn't seem concerned about the past and neither was she. He made her life better. That was all she needed to know for now.

"Will you tell me? When you want to hear it?" He looked at her uncertainly. "I don't always understand…cues. I-I may not always identify the appropriate moments. But I don't want you to wonder because I'm failing to communicate it."

Her other boyfriends had always known. Asking them to express their feelings would have felt demanding and arbitrary. But hearing the words from Walter, even if he needed prompting, was still far more satisfying than anything she could remember in the past. "Okay." She raked through the curls above his ears, scratching lightly with her nails and feeling a little smug when his eyes slipped shut. "We'll figure this out, Walter. People in love can get through a lot, you know? Just look at Happy and Toby."

He met her gaze again, a smile spreading over his face as if a thought had just occurred to him. "We're in love."

It took Paige a second to realize what he meant, but then it clicked and she found herself matching his dopey grin. She could still remember the first time, more than a year ago, when _I'm in love_ seemed like a real possibility. There was no way Walter hadn't thought it, himself, dozens or hundreds of times before he worked up the courage to actually verbalize it to her.

But now it wasn't _him_ or _her,_ it was _them,_ and they didn't have to hide from it anymore.

"Yeah." Paige clutched the collar of his shirt between her fingers, suddenly desperate to feel his lips back on hers for whatever time they had left. "Yeah, we are."


End file.
